


Koyaanisqatsi

by rednihilist



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Drama, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:04:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rednihilist/pseuds/rednihilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"On the seventy-fifth anniversary," Snow reads, "as a reminder that the rebels stood alone, cut-off, and in direct defiance of The Capitol, the male and female tributes will receive no sponsorship, notifications, weapons, or supplies whatsoever within the confines of the arena."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Life

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Hunger Games and certain characters belong to Suzanne Collins, Lionsgate, et al. No profit is gained from this writing—only, hopefully, enjoyment.
> 
> Title(s) from the 1982 film of the same name.
> 
> Companion playlist: http://8tracks.com/rednihilist/life-out-of-balance

There are nightmares and weird terrifying moments when she knows she's still there in the Arena but will gradually come back and realize she isn't, that it's all just in her head. She's supposed to be doing things, stupid ridiculous activities like those the people of The Capitol seem to love—arranging flowers, decorating this house, designing clothing, being happy. It's disgusting, and smiling is now just another lie she tells people.  
  
She thinks she now knows why Haymitch drinks all the time.  
  
Peeta seems to be adapting quite well, though. He lives alone in his Victor's house, and if he lies with his pleasant temperament and sweet smiles, then he is a great actor. His family is still down with their bakery, and Katniss has to tell herself every time she and Peeta are together that it's not right for her to ask why. She thinks she already knows why, and it's sad because she's the one who would do better alone but has her mom and Prim, while Peeta needs people, craves the interaction and talking—and he gets stuck with a bad mom, a dad who stands back, and two older brothers who beat up on him. That's why he's all alone up in his hard-earned house. That's why he's so good at talking and getting people to like him, to listen. Peeta learned to fight with his mouth a long time ago, and Katniss doesn't think she'll ever be on his level when it comes to planning and verbal sparring. But, then again, she doesn't have to be.  
  
That's why they work well together, as a team. Peeta will convince everyone with his words, and whoever he doesn't manage to snare she will. He can have the figurative traps; she'll handle the literal ones.  
  
  
***  
  
_The drier climate always makes him tire more easily, and the higher elevation periodically gives him nosebleeds. The sun seems farther removed, the moon as well. There is nothing organic or authentic in The Capitol. Everything is stone, like an ancient crypt, or distorted indulgence, like lipstick on a corpse. It's fitting.  
  
Once Tributes are Reaped, they're all dead. Some just stop breathing sooner than others._  
  
***  
  
It all rushes past in a blur, much like that first train ride into the Capitol. Two hundred miles per hour and more, and still she finds life can't move quickly enough. There's no blurring the horror and shock on their faces, and no amount of looking away will ever banish the enormous wave of guilt and shame rising inside her.  
  
Nothing can stop the Reaping; the Games must go on.  
  
She feels forever stuck on that train—trapped between two disparate worlds with no hope of ever finding true safety, caught between a rock and a hard place. Point A is 12, where people simultaneously pity and loathe her. Point B is the Capitol, and the less said about it the better.  
  
Now, it's time to get ready, be primed and polished and photographed and then. . .  
  
She is a commodity now, Haymitch slurs at her one night in the Victors' Village. The Capitol made her what she is and reserves the right to distribute her as it sees fit—to whomever it sees fit. He doesn't come right out and say it then, and later Katniss screams at him for lying to her, for hiding the truth.  
  
"Well, excuse me for trying to be tactful for once!" he yells back, waving the hand holding his drink glass and thus flinging expensive liquor all around the room. But, the place is already well on its way to smelling like him, so it's no great loss—at least in her book.  
  
Effie of course is of a different opinion.  
  
"Haymitch, please!" she trills, sounding about as angry as she ever gets. "I'll not have another fire in here like that dreadful incident three years ago with Finni– !"  
  
"Shut the hell up!" Haymitch shouts back at her, cutting her off, and this time he deliberately hurls his glass in her direction. It hits the wall behind Effie, about a foot to her left really, but it's close enough to make her scream and everyone else in the room come to a complete stop.  
  
"Haymitch?" Peeta then quietly asks, and even Katniss, though she's still roaring with fury inside, recognizes that maybe things have gone too far—that maybe she's pushed too hard.  
  
Effie's stuck-up and all, but that's no reason to terrorize her. It's not her fault.  
  
She doesn't call the shots; none of them do, really.  
  
***  
  
_One of his most charitable sponsors actually managed to come away with the trident he'd used in the Arena. She'd whispered over dinner that he was to meet her later on the third floor, second door to the left.  
  
It still had blood on the tips of its gold prongs, and he'd forgotten about the shell and scalloping detail running the length of it, but it was comforting and familiar, and he felt strong and impervious once more holding it.  
  
Mercedes had come up behind him, told him to hold it like he were readying to spear someone.  
  
"Pretend it's that girl from 3 you skewered," she whispered into his ear. "You could even go ahead and throw it. I'll replace the wall, the decorations. I'd pay anything to see you throw that in person."  
  
For a second, he'd thought she'd said, 'throw that in a person,' and he'd abruptly dropped it to the floor.  
  
It'd been years before he'd picked up another trident back in 4—this one plain and true and in the family for generations—and even so, he felt terrible every time he hurled it. But, he kept throwing it. He couldn't not.  
  
It was a necessary evil, and he was making up for lost time in not having realized that before._  
  
***  
  
But, the silence just makes Haymitch blearily look around the penthouse at them—at Katniss and Peeta, uncomfortably dressed and made up to within an inch of their lives, at Cinna and Portia, ruffled and on-edge but oh-so-quiet in their worry, at Effie, who's visibly shaking before the wall splattered with some kind of green rum. Next, there are soft footsteps behind them in the hallway, the one that leads back to the bedrooms, and Katniss winces and refuses to turn. Peeta does, though. He always looks.  
  
Fully turning around, he says, "Hey, Lara," before walking back towards her. "Sorry, did we wake you up?"  
  
Haymitch snorts at that, but the rest of them are silent. It's been awkward and difficult for all of them to remember. . .  
  
Katniss looks back, catches the tail-end of the girl's headshake. There's some series of movements she does with her hands that Peeta frowns at, and that's when Katniss faces away again. She doesn't want to see that. It makes her a coward, pretending that what's out of sight is out of mind, especially here in these circumstances with all that's looming large on the horizon, but the alternative is just too agonizing. She'd rather be a capable coward than a broken one.  
  
"I'm, uh– " Peeta starts to say, and his voice is louder suddenly, clearly speaking to the rest of them now. "I'll just take her back to her room now."  
  
Katniss looks over her shoulder at him, and their eyes meet briefly, and then Peeta's herding Lara back to the hallway. As they get closer, an Avox steps away from the wall, even hesitantly holds out a thin hand. That's something else painful to see, Lara pausing long enough to grab the hand, and then it's the three of them passing out of sight.  
  
As she turns her head back to Haymitch and the others, she sees another Avox is already working at mopping up the mess on the wall and floor. Effie's moved over and is sitting like a bright but tiny bird on the corner of the sofa.  
  
"Well," Katniss says, for lack of anything better, "that was exciting. It's not every day we get booze thrown around the room. Oh, wait," she adds, making it as innocent-sounding as possible, as Haymitch turns the full force of his glare on her again, "we do."  
  
"Don't you start. . . " he rumbles, which makes her scoff in disgust and frustration.  
  
"Like you get to be upset in this situation!" Katniss snaps, trying to make her voice as harsh now as she can. "I don't see any 'appointments' taking up space on  _your_ schedule, Mr. Abernathy!" And now Haymitch is fully facing her, but he's not looking, not meeting her eyes, and she knows exactly why that is and goes for the verbal jugular. "Where are your lectures on anatomy and expectations? When are  _you_ being pimped out to anyone who can pay?!"  
  
The room is silent and charged like a storm is close. Maybe she's the storm in this instance, raging against whatever's in her way—even when it's got no say in how things are. Effie's not at fault here and neither is Haymitch, but it feels good to wound and hurt and cut deeply. She sees Cinna's eyes flick over her right shoulder and knows without looking that Peeta's returned just in time to catch that last outburst of hers.  
  
She could wound him too, knows precisely which spots to aim for. She's a hunter, after all, a killer—a murderer. Three of them are in this room, more in this building, and more in The Capitol itself. They're all murderers in a way—complicit in sending children to their deaths year after year. They thrive on it here, get high off it like the smoke they breathe in or the morphling they shoot in their veins. They send all kinds of kids into the Arena, good ones, bad ones, small kids, aggressive ones, terrified and skilled and pathetic. Healthy kids volunteer; sick ones are volunteered. There have been kids who can't run, can't think properly, one who couldn't see.  
  
Now there will be one who can't hear.  
  
She abruptly turns around and stalks out of the room, avoiding touching or even looking at Peeta on her way. No one says a single word to stop her. She wishes they would.  
  
It's taken a little while, probably longer than it should have, but Katniss now knows the truth everyone else tried to keep from her last year. No one wins the Games except the President. Tributes die, and inch by inch Panem dies with them. They're all dead inside—empty and useless.  
  
And now she's one of them.  
  
***    
  
_Even when he'd returned that first time, he'd had his Capitol smile firmly in place. Off he'd stepped from the train, Mags a solid presence at his back and the sun pounding overhead, only to be hit by a wave of relatives and friends and acquaintances, all rushing to him, all overjoyed to see him.  
  
Months passed before his sleep pattern evened out, and his appetite, reflexes, and reactions never truly went back down to normal, but he'd managed to step into the sea within hours of coming home. Later, his uncle Jonas had had to follow him in and pull him out when, long after the sun had set, he'd still made no move to come in, and they both pretended his face and chest were wet from the water, not tears and sweat from fear.  
  
It was just him reacclimatizing._  
  
***  
  
At first, it seems like just a sick joke, albeit one nobody in the room is laughing at, and usually Haymitch laughs at everything. She doesn't know what it says about the situation when even Haymitch isn't laughing, but it can't be good.  
  
It's honestly the definition of adding insult to injury, and what's worse is that it's not just her. It's Peeta too. It is, she's informed, something of a longstanding tradition, and her mind is then caught up in a loop of thinking about exactly how Haymitch knows and then deliberately not thinking about that and then coming back to thinking about it and. . .  
  
"You're not serious," she says, but she knows he is.  
  
Haymitch heaves a huge sigh, and then he wobbles over into his kitchen and rustles around a little until he finds another bottle of white liquor. And here she is just standing in the middle of his so-called living room, dripping snow and water onto the floor, Peeta perched on the cleanest arm of the least ruined sofa with a hand literally covering his mouth in shock, and Haymitch is just going about his usual business of maintaining his drunkenness.  
  
The weirdest part about all this is how standard it feels, how  _not_ weird. She should be more surprised, like Peeta is, or at least be feeling really bad about it, but, honestly—she's not all that surprised. Somewhere in the back of her mind, maybe even not that far away, she thinks she's always known something like this was in the cards for Victors. If Haymitch had done it too, it might go a long way to accounting for—well, Haymitch and all his issues.  
  
She wonders if this is the time to start drinking.  
  
Every year, it feels like things just get progressively worse. For some reason, she doesn't have particularly strong or thorough memories of her childhood. Oh, the big moments are there, loud and clear, but it's the little things that are missing, to the point where it seems like her whole life is just one long series of horrible events. She remembers when the mine collapsed but not when Prim was born or walked the first time or lost her first tooth. She remembers them starving and being so desperate to get food that she was prepared to sell herself to Cray but not the first day of school or her first hunt. She remembers twisting her ankle when she was little, while she and her dad were out beyond the fence, and he'd gone on without her, just around the bend, just a little ways, but she'd been so scared that he'd leave her there, utterly terrified without reason because her dad—never would've left.  
  
He didn't. He didn't leave; he was taken from them. The Capitol and all its bullshit took her father away, left a shell of her mother behind to keep breathing and to serve as a constant reminder that this was how life really was. Life is starting out with a whole and healthy family and being so happy that all the world is green and blue and yellow, and every day looks better than the last, and growing up is the slow process of having all that yanked away, piece by piece, until death is the only thing left, until how a person dies is the only choice left to make.  
  
Life is losing everything until there's nothing left to lose.  
  
They don't tell the kids this in school, but everyone finds out eventually. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in 12, right behind 'accidents' and starvation, and a kid's not really grown up until someone close has died. Some kids are 6 when they're adults, the lucky ones 11 or 12, but everyone who's gone through a Reaping comes out the other side older and more hollow. There are no kids older than 12 in 12. It makes for a nice synchronicity.  
  
That's what life is, and that's what The Capitol does, and maybe that's why she can't remember the happy stuff anymore, why she couldn't hold onto those memories. Maybe it's better this way.  
  
She can't remember all that she's lost, just that she's lost and will continue to do so as long as she's still alive, for there are many ways to die here but really only two causes. Either people are killed by The Capitol or by their own hand. There's no middle ground.  
  
"When– when do we start?" comes Peeta's voice, and she looks over at him sharply.  
  
"Night of the opening ceremonies," Haymitch responds, and it's probably the quietest she's ever heard him speak. There's a clinking sound like he's set down a bottle or a glass heavily on the counter, but she doesn't turn to look.  
  
She keeps her eyes on Peeta because it's good practice—for later. He's not looking back, but she knows he's still watching her in return. Peeta's subtle like that. He's good at being patient, and if she didn't know him as well as she does now, she'd call him words like "clever" and "sly" and "crafty."  
  
She does know him, though, much as she still wishes she hadn't had to learn. And he knows her.  
  
"We're both going," she states, and Haymitch chooses to laugh at that, but it's Peeta finally meeting Katniss' eyes that really brings the truth of it home. He looks scared but resigned, and she hopes she's not as transparent as Peeta right now. If she is, she'll have to work on that.  
  
She doesn't want to look weak in front of—those people. She won't give more of herself to them than she has to, and if by being strong and unmoved she can also somehow hold onto the parts of Peeta that truly matter, then that's what she'll do and excel at.  
  
She doesn't give up without a fight.  
  
Haymitch finishes his chuckling with a little snort, saying, "That was the main stipulation, I'm told. You're a package deal."  
  
Well, good then. She's glad they're all on the same page, since they're stuck reading this book till the end.  
  
***  
  
_The announcement comes while he's in the sea, swimming. He'd timed it so.  
  
He climbs out, hands and feet slipping wetly on the ladder rungs. When he's close enough, he can hear Annie crying in the cabin. It means he's a terrible person, but he doesn't go in to her for at least another ten minutes—just stands there on the deck of his boat, the water from the sea slowly sliding down to form a colorless pool beneath him._  
  
***  
  
She's home with Prim and her mom when the announcement for the Quarter Quell airs and hasn't even been able to really divert any thought to what the catch might be this year. For the 25th, it was the Districts voting in the Tributes themselves, and in the 50th, Haymitch's Games, the number Reaped had been doubled, so that a total of 48 went into the Arena that year.  
  
What's worse than being thrown to the wolves by your own people, or knowing that in order to survive, you'll have to outlast 47 other kids? She hadn't wanted to dwell on it, and now it's here, and she and Prim are sitting on the sofa together, and their mom is perched on the edge of the stuffed armchair nearby, and what goes through her head as President Snow reaches into the box and withdraws the envelope marked 75 is the thought that right now there are kids out there who soon she will be watching kill one another. There are kids nearby, in this very district, who she will personally try to keep alive.  
  
Then, the President flips open the envelope and withdraws the card from inside, and he's reading, and she thinks she must be imagining the high-pitched whine screeching in her ears, or maybe it's the television malfunctioning or the telephone ringing because it's very loud, and it hurts her head to hear it.  
  
"On the seventy-fifth anniversary," Snow reads, "as a reminder that the rebels stood alone, cut-off, and in direct defiance of The Capitol, the male and female tributes will receive no sponsorship, notifications, weapons, or supplies whatsoever within the confines of the arena."  
  
The whine turns into a scream in her throat, and Katniss jerks her hands out of Prim's tight grip and darts out the front door before either Prim or their mom can stop her.  
  
She's halfway down the path before she even knows where she's going, and it's only the wind suddenly picking up and sending her loose hair flying across her face that snaps her back to awareness. There are still lights on down in the town but only two houses up here that glow in the darkness.  
  
It's cold out, and she's just standing here, and someone distantly calls out her name, and Katniss realizes this is her life in a nutshell. She's so screwed, and she knows it, but somehow she just can't give in and go back inside, can't pretend that she doesn't see what's there or that it doesn't matter.  
  
She'll face it alone if she has to, but she can't keep putting it off.  
  
"Katniss," he says, at the same time that he sets a hand down carefully on her shoulder, and that's when she starts shivering. "Katniss," he repeats, and she's kind of surprised it isn't a question.  
  
But, why should it be? He knows, after all. He must be feeling the same things she is right now, maybe even worse because they both know he's—softer-hearted.  
  
"I could hear you tromping the whole way up here," she says detachedly, receiving a squeeze on the shoulder in response. The wind is more powerful up here in the Village, where there are fewer trees to catch it and slow its passage. It whips her hair around, sometimes causing it to slap her in the face. It feels like just the beginning.  
  
"You're not wearing any shoes," Peeta remarks a moment later, which is followed quickly by the seemingly random, "and I, uh– I made you a cake. It's chocolate."  
  
Now would be a good time to turn and stare, but instead she just smiles.  
  
"Did you decorate it?" she asks, and to her embarrassment it comes out as a sob, her voice cracking in the middle.  
  
"Come inside, Katniss," he says, and it's low but firm, solid, still—like there's no wind to compete with in order to be heard. "Come on. You've stood out in the cold for long enough.  
  
"It's time to go inside."  
  
***  
  
_He isn't surprised to be told he's volunteered again as mentor. He isn't even shocked he received a face-call from Snow confirming it. He isn't sad he's going back to The Capitol. He's not happy; he's not angry.  
  
Feeling anything regarding work is inane at this point. He'll try again this year, but it's all just a formality. The Victor has already been crowned, and it's no Tribute. It is never a Tribute._  
  
***  
  
Officially, Haymitch is mentoring the boy tribute and Katnisss the girl, but in reality she and Peeta are observing as Haymitch takes on both. Comings and goings in the Training Center are monitored but not particularly restricted, so Peeta's presence has yet to be formally remarked upon. Plus, with all the Tributes' personnel and the Gamemakers and the staff tasked with maintaining the Center itself, it seems anyone in possession of a clearance code is allowed inside—all for the glory of the Games.  
  
Besides, they're the star-crossed lovers of District 12. The rules were changed for them once—not broken, as Haymitch constantly repeats, but merely modified, "adapted to suit the ever-changing political and social climate" of The Capitol—and having Peeta stay in the Training Center, specifically in her room, is just another in a string of revisions this year.  
  
But, it is the Quarter Quell. All rules fly out the window once every 25 years.  
  
And as far as the lodging arrangements go, she's used to sharing a bed, or at least she was up until about a year ago. Ever since Prim was old enough and big enough to sleep in a proper bed, the two of them have shared one. It got to the point where, those first nights away from home—on the train and then at the Training Center—she'd had trouble sleeping by herself, all alone in a strange dark room. The Capitol had a weird sound to it anyway. It was silent where she expected creaking and quiet where the coughing was usually loud enough to wake up the whole neighborhood. It was that difference in how things sounded which made her take notice of the lack of breathing at her side. Even now, she had difficulty falling asleep and staying that way most nights, and part of that was the memories of the Arena, but a big chunk had to be because—she felt lonely at night.  
  
Which is why, when the time came, she didn't really seem to have as many problems sharing a bed with Peeta as apparently everyone expected from her.  
  
That's not to say that she didn't have any, or that she didn't then communicate them to the others quite vocally, but really she knew and accepted that this was what would have to be done. They had to look like they were madly in love with each other, and people who were madly in love—slept together.  
  
And nobody outside their little circle ever need know that sleeping is about the extent of it.  
  
***  
  
_He and Mags and Accalia silently herd their two Tributes off the train, down the Tribute-Walk, and into the Training Center. The cameras record everything, and he grins and waves and winks and leers at the crowd.  
  
The whole world is a stage, someone had once quoted to him from some book. The whole of Panem is a stage, The Capitol the center point. What people seem to forget is that people are stages too.  
  
He'd say he was acting, but that would imply effort or intent. He isn't acting; he isn't the actor. He's the stage. A stranger will occupy his space, take over his actions and speak with his mouth, and then when the show stops—the stage stands empty, collecting dust, forgotten until it's time for the next spectacle._  
  
***  
  
People in The Capitol aren't subtle. She's not sure if they're exactly trying to be, but the fact remains that it's kind of easy to figure out who is actually from here and who is not.  
  
The 'entitled,' as she and Peeta have termed them, wear a certain expression when looking at something they consider foreign, interesting, unpleasant, threatening, confusing, or the like. It's an ugly, embarrassing expression. It says a lot about the person wearing it. Someone looking like that at a strange thing or, more often, a strange person is showing more for less and being confident that somehow it will still all even out. Capitol people think that way. They actually believe the saying about favorable odds and that they're the ones who will always be on top—mostly because they always have been.  
  
Normal people sometimes think like that too and show what they're thinking like that but only when they're safe, when they're with people they trust, when they're not here in The Capitol. That's how she and Peeta can immediately tell whether a person's Capitol-born or not. Are they entitled? Are they fearless? Are they lighter than air?  
  
The only people who consistently mess up this system are Victors because most of them are crazy, high, or some combination of both, and they've all had to be brave and selfish and self-destructive, so pinning down who's a Victor and who's a Citizen is a whole other game Katniss is frankly getting sick of playing. Peeta still gets a kick out of it, meeting these sad weirdos, but she just finds it sick and macabre. They're bonding over death—surviving it and giving it, passing it on to others.  
  
Katniss wants to glower. Her mouth aches to twist into a snarl.  
  
But, it's not safe to give in, not here, not in The Capitol, not for her. She's not one of the ghouls. She and Peeta, Haymitch, the other Victors and some of the designers even, they're just the entertainment. They are prey, food for the slavering masses here.  
  
Yet it's Peeta who whispers to her one night that though the Capitol thinks they're sheep, they're more than that.  
  
"Victors are wolves, Katniss," he breathes, and something in her loosens just a little. "We're wolves in sheep's wool. We have teeth—and claws."  
  
***  
  
_Among the first words Haymitch Abernathy ever said to him directly were, "You think this is hard, imagine what it'd be like for 'em if you weren't there standing in the way," and since then the two of them have generally agreed on most things—mainly, that it's all downhill from here.  
  
He likens it to having two distinct families, both of circumstance, which he dreads seeing overlap. Annie is from the second family, which formed because of the Games, The Capitol, him becoming a Victor and periodic Mentor, yet now she's more a part of his first family than he is—Mags too. Both live closer to his parents and aunts and uncles and cousins throughout the year than he, and both have actual day-to-day lives in 4, whereas he's a guest in his own district. He goes back only a couple times a year, and they look at him now, these people he grew up amongst, the same way they look at Accalia or the Peacekeepers or anyone not from 4, like he is a stranger from The Capitol.    
  
But, thankfully, no one from his first family has yet crossed over to his second. And his family in 4 is large and includes several children of eligible age, and for all that they too stare at him, and for all that he can't tell if it's curiosity or fear on their faces, this set of circumstances is far preferable to others.  
  
Things get worse; they never get better. He thinks he can live with that—off in The Capitol, where he also still manages to convince himself his home is 4._  
  
***  
  
The areas for Victors alone are designated by the color red, and they're in The Capitol for three days before Haymitch finally manages to get it together long enough to show them around. Although she and Peeta have done some exploring on their own of course, they've left the Lounge, Club, and Mentor areas well alone. The Restaurant was intimidating but at least it was empty when they'd walked in the other day, hand-in-hand and both nicely poised. The Rec, however, was bustling with activity, but that was to be expected, given the general nature of Victors. They wouldn't want all those 'skills' to go to waste. She and Peeta had left that area pretty quickly, barely getting a couple glances thrown their way before bolting.  
  
"Now, don't say anything stupid or do anything foolish, and for your own damn good try to avoid a fight, and– " Haymitch abruptly stopped, both talking and walking, right in the middle of the pathway, causing the two of them to stumble into him from behind.  
  
"And. . . ?" Peeta asks after a moment, once the two of them have rebounded off Haymitch and recovered their balance. Peeta looks over at her, and she shrugs in response. So he sighs and releases her hand to step around and try to get Haymitch's attention.  
  
"Yeah," Haymitch suddenly says, his voice distant and his attention clearly on something else.  
  
At that point, Katniss moves around until she can follow Haymitch's line of sight, and he seems to be looking up at one of the giant vid screens that are everywhere in The Capitol. The action on-screen is another recap of past years' Games, and at the moment it's showing Caesar Flickerman and a woman she doesn't recognize talking in a studio while a young kid in the background is bent over, running for his life with an arm wrapped around his stomach. A closer look and a gasp from Peeta tell her what she'd subconsciously already picked up on. The boy running on the screen is Haymitch, and from the way blood and other things can be seen peeking around his fingers, it's clear he's just been literally gutted. She's surprised he's even still conscious, let alone making a decent attempt at escape.  
  
But, then it's like a switch is thrown. Haymitch, the older one standing beside her now, kind of flinches, and then he's off again down the walkway at a fast clip. Peeta jerks his hand out, palm open, and Katniss sighs and takes it, and together they follow their erstwhile Mentor through what she's determined is the heavy foot traffic typical of The Capitol. She manages another quick look up at the screen just in time to see that wounded kid collapse on the ground and a figure come rushing up behind him, when Peeta pulls her into the Lounge, and she can't see the screen anymore.  
  
***  
  
_The President kept a hand on him for several minutes after crowning him Victor.  
  
"Now, wave to your admirers, Finnick," he'd said, and together they'd turned to face the crowd, and together they'd waved and smiled at all the people, and President Snow was gripping the spot where his neck met his shoulder throughout it all.  
  
That was their first meeting, and later he couldn't recall if he'd noticed the smell of blood or if the rose scent had been especially overpowering or even what he was wearing. What remained, years and years later, clear as the finest crystal, was the feeling of being squeezed tight and turned around and the perfect recall he had of Snow's voice saying his name. He always said it the same way, and it wasn't until everything was over and done with that he realized that was his first encounter with Snow but not Snow's first encounter with him. And it certainly wasn't the last.  
  
"Finnick," Snow would say, and only later would he realize that's how people he'd slept with said his name—like they knew and owned every part of him._  
  
***  
  
" –is complete and utter horseshit!" they hear a woman shout from farther inside the building, immediately followed by sounds of laughter and jeering. The main room itself is empty, save two people sitting in a corner booth, talking animatedly about something if their wild hand gestures are any indication. Haymitch is still a few paces ahead, but he waits at the double doors leading who knows where for them to catch up. Then, he pushes his way through with a literal bang, as the right door is forced all the way back until it loudly knocks against the wall.  
  
That's how Katniss and Peeta are introduced to the other Victors in The Capitol this year—by Haymitch deliberately making an entrance and then swiftly abandoning them in favor of the bar on the other side of the room.  
  
Peeta's still holding her hand, and he goes in first, but she can't deny it's nerve wracking walking in there the first time. They're all staring at the two of them, and the only thing she and Peeta can do is look back. Katniss thinks she'd be better off not scowling, but she can't seem to stop. Peeta, meanwhile, looks too happy in her estimation, or at least that's what the petty side of her thinks. He'll probably be best friends with all of these people inside two hours. Maybe she should quit before she starts and just go join Haymitch in getting drunk.  
  
Then, she looks past the Victors at the wall of screens behind them and sees the replay of past Games is going on in here too, only sans any commentary by Flickerman or his sort. In fact, as Katniss takes a few steps closer, pulling Peeta along with her, she suspects this is different footage altogether from what's being shown outside.  
  
"Is that the 72nd?" she finds herself asking aloud, recognizing the desert-themed Arena from that year.  
  
There's a brief moment of silence, and then one of the older Victors says, "Yeah, it's Talasi's turn again." Katniss looks over, meets the speaker's eyes, and the good-natured smile she sees there seems sincere, but the man's voice is as coarse as his appearance, and if he's not drunk, then she's Caesar Flickerman.  
  
She leans over and whispers in Peeta's ear, "Great, a whole room full of Haymitches." Peeta, thankfully, is returning her smile when she pulls back again, but her action's produced some interesting responses in the meantime—mostly bemused, from what she can tell, but there are a few who look varying degrees of disgusted and angry. One of the younger Victors, the one slouched so far down the sofa that her head is almost on the seat cushion and her butt nearly off it, currently has the most sneering sneer on her face Katniss has ever seen. It's the epitome of 'sneer,' and she's looking right this way.  
  
But, Katniss isn't the type to pick fights, and this is definitely not the type to pick fights with, and so she just nudges Peeta with her elbow towards a couple of empty chairs over on the left, and they go and as unobtrusively as possible sit down.  
  
Now that there's not much to do besides watch, she finds it hard to do so. This was the year where appearances were deceiving. The giant ugly tree-things with spikes and barbs were the only source of safe drinking liquid, while the hardy flowers and thin, green, leafy plants proved poisonous and lethal when consumed. The same went for the animals. Katniss can remember holding her breath as one of the Tributes fired off a shot at a hideous bird-like muttation with smooth, featherless wings and huge talons. Back then, she'd been sure it was a bad move made out of sheer desperation because if anything looked guaranteed to be inedible, it was that 'bird.' How wrong she'd been. That was probably the best eating any Tribute had that year, as the sponsor-balloons were continually getting caught and tangled in the tall, barbed, tree-like plants. One girl, the Victor that year, as it turned out, managed to climb one and retrieve some much needed medicine for a snake bite, but that too seemed more like a combination of luck and desperation than skill or knowledge, and no else ever pulled it off.  
  
Talasi, the guy had said. That was the Victor of the 72nd Games, Talasi Numkena from District 5.  
  
Katniss suddenly feels eyes on her and looks to the right, over at the sofa, where another younger female Victor's looking back. This one, though she's sitting right next to the one who'd sneered at Katniss, appears curious, but as she and Katniss keep up the eye contact, there seems to be more going on in those eyes than just casual interest.  
  
Sudden screaming coming from the screen echoes through the room, and the girl whips her head back around to look, as Katniss does the same, only a second later wishing she hadn't. What's playing now is apparently the uncut footage of one of the Tributes being slowly eaten by a giant snake muttation. Snakes don't have mouths ringed with long sharp fangs, but these creatures did.  
  
Katniss turns her head away, looks to her left at Peeta, who's still staring at the screen with stark horror, and then as distraction she swings around to peer across the room and see what Haymitch is up to. Surprisingly enough, he hasn't passed out yet but is actually engaging in conversation with another older male Tribute, this one thin and wiry with glasses. They're both sitting down but close together, their heads angled towards each other, and she can see Haymitch's worried scowl all the way from over here.  
  
Then, the screaming abruptly stops, and Katniss feels terrible once she realizes she'd actually gotten used to it enough in the past minute to effectively ignore it. She doesn't look at the screen, knowing what she'll see and not wanting to, but she does raise her head enough to look in the direction of the sofa again, just as one of the Victors—a young man this time, whom she thinks was a Career—remarks, "And then there were two."  
  
And Katniss keeps looking at the profile of the girl from before until that girl turns once more, and then it's that same shameful feeling rising up inside her from a moment ago when she'd automatically blocked out the screaming Tribute. For looking back at Katniss from the blood red sofa in The Capitol Victor's Lounge is the 72nd's Talasi, and she still looks mildly curious, but underneath Katniss sees that deeper 'something else' and feels bad for ignoring it or not catching it right away—because Talasi looks like she's screaming on the inside, and everyone else is still just blocking it out.  
  
***  
  
_It's already full by the time he arrives, but they still let him through.  
  
And here he was hoping he'd get turned away. Of course then he'd just have to make it up to Anaxa later. Better in the long run to just get it over with now.  
  
He walks right in and wastes no time pushing his way over to the block because if he's here, he might as well get the most out of it and enjoy his free 'refreshments.' One of the very few perks in this work is the fact nobody really minds if he's a little out of it with booze or smoke or thrum or morphling or any other kind of mind-altering substance. As long as he can and does follow orders, his people are happy, and when they're happy—The Capitol makes money. Besides, he pays for almost nothing with actual money anymore. It's all given to him.  
  
The real expenses require a different sort of return.  
  
He sidles up between a small figure draped in glossy green slips and a taller, more masculine form wearing gray fur and leans over the top of the counter. He's tall enough that, when he stretches his arm out, he's able to block the path of one of the tenders, causing her to jerk her head over in a glare at him, which quickly changes to something much more congenial.  
  
"Finnick Odair!" she exclaims, setting down the three orders she'd been carrying and coming closer, and he catches the accent there in her voice, a kind of clipping off of the last sound in his name that makes it seem worlds more sophisticated. He doesn't like it. It immediately reminds him of all the snide comments over the years about his 'tragic upbringing' out in 'those horrid, backwards districts.'  
  
He finds he doesn't like this tender for the sole reason that his mind can't reconcile her genuine smile with her Capitol accent. One's pleasant, the other infuriating. He blinks, lifts his head, and without another thought walks away from the counter, leaving the tender gaping after him in hurt confusion. He's now unsettled and can't risk making it worse. Every meet is always twice as difficult if he's worked up, and he's learned the hard way that adding anything on top of anxiety only leads to him messing up. Rarely do people want their paid companions maudlin and surly, and what state he's in when he starts—imbibing—will only intensify the more he indulges.  
  
So much for courage or comfort of any kind tonight. Looks like he'll be fulfilling the whims of this particular patron dead sober.  
  
Well, there have been worse beginnings, and he doesn't expect tonight to be anything out of the ordinary. In three years, Anaxa Goras has never been a problem.  
  
Famous last words.  
  
He literally collides with Jo a couple hours later, stumbling up from the basement of the club and taking a wrong turn towards the bathrooms instead of the service entrance. At least he's still together enough to have headed away from the main floor because what he really doesn't need right now is more bad press making its way back to 4, showing him in all his post-appointment glory to everyone in the district and succeeding only in further illustrating, in color and high resolution, the extent of his decadent descent into the embrace of all The Capitol has to offer its beloved Victors.  
  
Well, at least the fillip is doing its job. Anaxa lives off the stuff and makes a living living off the stuff. He lives to liven up the lives of others. His voice is the voice of the voiceless multitude–  
  
"Shut the fuck up already," Jo snaps at him, her hands gripping his shoulders and her feet bracing his own so he doesn't slip or slide or end up doing the splits. "What are you on?!" she then hisses, and he laughs and lets his head drop forward onto his chest the way it's been wanting to for the last half hour.  
  
His neck is missing, or it's not doing its job, and his back hurts. Johanna's fingers are curled around his shoulders like the talons of a hawk encasing its prey. A few more fingers, and she'd be touching the innermost part of him, the substance that keeps his body alive and ticking and fucking and tricking.  
  
Jo's scowl wavers, and then she's jerking him forward to peer at the back of this body they all love, and whenever she hisses she sounds exactly like a cat.  
  
"Shut up, Finnick!" First, she shakes him, and the scowl's back, but then she grabs him by the hand and tugs him after her all the way out the back of the club, and that's where he'd been trying to get to anyway, so his feet follow.  
  
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Jo is chanting under her breath, and he knows her eyes are on a constant swivel, making sure the path ahead is clear of media hounds.  
  
"In fact," he offers, once they're out in the alley with the rest of the filth and garbage, "I only very recently finished, Jo!" Then, he grins and chuckles and squeezes the hand around his own, and that's when his legs decide to stop working. He fittingly takes a header into the closest sack of trash, which results in Johanna being jerked abruptly to the side, which in turn proves to be too much for her tall, pointy shoes. One heel breaks with a loud crack, and before he knows it she's down on one knee.  
  
"Finnick!" she growls, practically throwing his hand back at him in fury.  
  
He just keeps laughing from where he's facedown in the bag of trash, which, judging by the smell, is the remains of some kind of fish, and that's when his brain and eyes stop functioning correctly.  
  
"Annie. . . " he says, and if he tries hard enough maybe this can be the sea, with the saltwater on his face and the smell of fish in the air and the heat and burn of the sun on his back. Maybe this can be home.  
  
Maybe it already is home. Home is where the heart is, but where is home for those who are heartless?  
  
He's pretty sure this is as close to home as he'll ever get. After all, at least he belongs here with the stinking garbage The Capitol tosses out, easily replacing anything it uses up. No one would begrudge him space here.  
  
For this is not 4, not home, not saltwater of the sea but of his own eyes' making, not the smell of fish caught but fish eaten, and not the pain of sunburn on his skin but the fire of whip lashes administered in front of an aroused crowd by the hand of someone who paid for the privilege of doing so.  
  
"For fuck's sake, stop crying and get up," Jo says, and the words are harsh, but she's not—not to him, anyway, not in the ways that matter, anyway. "Finn, turn over," she grouses. Her hands are gentler this time, not quite as grabby as before in the club.  
  
"I hurt my back," he tells her, rolling onto his right side carefully.  
  
Jo frowns at him, an expression wholly different from her scowl, and then she just shakes her head a few times and sighs. "You didn't hurt it," she counters, and she's not looking at him, instead staring upward where stars and the moon would be if the two of them weren't here—where the real world really would exist if it weren't this one.  
  
"I didn't?" he asks her quietly.  
  
She shakes her head again. Then, her eyes drop down to meet his, even as she keeps her head tilted upwards. Now she just looks like she considers herself superior, like she's looking down her nose at him both literally and figuratively.  
  
He finds he doesn't mind all that much. He's kind of used to it, and Jo's a friend.  
  
"They hurt it," she declares, stressing the subject, not the verb or object. "They did this to you; they do it to all of us." Then Johanna Mason throws her eyes back up to the sky and says to him, "For now."_  
  
***  
  
Haymitch waves them off from the sofa he's likely been passed out on all night. When she'd shaken him awake, he'd grimaced and hunched away from her hand, mumbling something like, "Don't need to go anyways," or "Pull the blinds closed, mockingjays." She's not sure which, but either one gives the impression he's not accompanying them on today's lunch meet.  
  
It's evidently some sort of tradition. All the Victors gather in the latest popular restaurant and just take up space for an afternoon, eating, drinking, gossiping, most likely fighting some. Katniss wouldn't have even known about it until it was too late, if not for Peeta mentioning it the other day. He'd been checking with Haymitch and Portia and, to a certain extent, Cinna about what was expected, and Katniss hadn't even the faintest clue what he'd been on about. Shows how interested she is in the society and politics here, although in this case she's a little bit grateful Peeta brought it up when he did. She is kind of curious to be included this time. They've seen and essentially overheard the other Victors interacting, but, other than Haymitch, neither she nor Peeta have actually spoken directly to one before. It will be like looking into the future maybe, and while she's already pretty sure that's not something she'll enjoy, it's always better to be prepared than not. She hates surprises.  
  
"Wear the blue," Cinna tells her, holding out an outfit of pants, shirt, vest, and boots, all in slightly varying shades of blue.  
  
"What's blue mean?" Katniss asks in return, gamely taking the clothes before sliding off her robe and beginning to put them on. She spares a couple seconds silently lamenting her lost sense of modesty, but after all, in the scheme of things, that's a minor price to pay in exchange for her life—and Peeta's.  
  
Still, it's a kind of placeholder for the larger issue of innocence, not that she'd been as naïve or hopeful as some, going into the Reaping for the fifth time with plenty of tessera already to her name. But, she hadn't used to dwell so much on dying before this all started—other people dying, yes, those close to her like Prim and Gale and her mom, but not she herself dying and certainly not at the hand of some other kid about her age for the entertainment and edification of Panem. Before everything this past year, death had been distant like The Capitol itself. She'd known it was there all right, had seen its face up close several times even, but she hadn't courted or hidden from or tried to outsmart it.  
  
"It's calming," Cinna says in answer to her question. "Almost everyone likes at least some shade of blue." Briefly setting his hands on her shoulders, he goes on, adding, "Figured you could use some peace on your side today," which makes Katniss smile a little.  
  
She finishes dressing, going over to the huge, floor-length mirror and patiently doing up the many small buttons that run down the front of the soft blue vest and along the outside of her forearms on the darker shirt underneath it, and then Cinna makes a clicking sound, and she can see him frown at her hair. He follows her over and lifts up her hair with his hands, his mouth twisting in that way that means he's debating what to do.  
  
"What do you have in mind for that?" she asks him cheekily, and he mock-scowls at her before letting her hair drop back down.  
  
"Nothing. I rather like the wild, casual look for this."  
  
Katniss just raises her eyebrows in reply, and Cinna smiles at her over her shoulder and then bends close and kisses her on the cheek. Katniss closes her eyes briefly, finishes up the last button, and doesn't wonder at all when the door to the room opens and closes, accompanied by the sounds of more than one pair of footsteps.  
  
"We match," Peeta then says quietly, and she snorts, opening her eyes to the sight of him all decked out in different pieces of clothing from hers but still, as he says, matching.  
  
"Of course we do," she replies, and she closes the distance between them, even sticking her hand out first for him to take. "Better go see what's become of our erstwhile Mentor," she quips, just to see Peeta smile.  
  
"Wonder if he ever found that bottle he came in looking for last night," he offers, as they start off down the hall to the foyer.  
  
Katniss actually finds herself laughing at that, having temporarily forgotten that whole drama the night before. "Oh, his face when he almost sat on you!" she crows, stopping a moment to bend over at the memory. "I thought he'd messed himself honestly."  
  
Peeta makes a sound that's a cross between a giggle and a sob. "Didn't need that mental image, thanks," he tells her, and that just sends her off again.  
  
But, Haymitch just ends up begging off, which means she and Peeta are on their own, again, but then they're getting used to that—again.  
  
***  
  
_He arrives late, and at this point it might even be subconscious because he's been doing this for so long. Odair, the party boy, Odair, the reprobate, Odair, the glory hound—Odair, Odair, Odair, who isn't really there.  
  
His first act is to get himself in a more suitable frame of mind, and he ignores the noise until after he's downed all of his first drink and half of his second. That's when he turns and starts making the rounds. All the regulars are snug in their usual spots, save Haymitch, who's a no-show, and the addition of last year's firebrands.  
  
Those 12s, he muses, are trouble by default.  
  
Jo is doing her best impression of an angry wall support, tucked into one of the corners and glaring at all and sundry. She spares him not a glance as he comes close, but the seat next to her is free, and he takes it for the invitation it is.  
  
"Afternoon, Princess," she rumbles, and he doesn't miss the smirk that flits over her lips before disappearing.  
  
"Technically," he responds, upping the cheerfulness of his tone just to needle her, "it's still morning for, oh, another seven minutes or so." She actually looks at him this time, and he grins. "So, good morning, beautiful Johanna!" he loudly proclaims, receiving looks from the others that are in turn amused, annoyed, or, in some cases, a mixture of both.  
  
"Fuck off," she politely sings back, and practically everyone laughs at that. He glances down towards the other end of the long table and can just make out Haymitch's power couple. The boy is smiling like he's perfectly at ease, while the girl just looks sullen and not a little confused. He ducks his head and makes a show of chuckling, leaning over to whisper in Jo's ear while the others are all still momentarily distracted, "You talk to anyone yet?"  
  
"No," she responds on an exhale, the coolness of her breath tickling his cheek and ear. Under the table, he feels it as she sets her hand over his and gives it a quick squeeze, the space of only a few seconds passing before she's withdrawn again. Jo is like a door to something mysterious. He doesn't know if what she keeps locked away inside is great or terrible—although, given the circumstances, it's probably the latter—but he doubts he'll ever find out anyway. Still, it's a beautiful door all by itself, and he's pretty sure only he and maybe Haymitch have managed to get even this close.  
  
"What about the new ones?" he asks, this time loud enough for the rest to overhear. Turning his head, he again looks down the length of the table and projects his voice. "You two enjoying yourselves? Why, you don't even have drinks yet!" he exclaims, sticking up his hand and waving pointedly at one of the hovering tenders. There is always a ton of staff at these meets, all of them officious and seemingly just waiting to do the Victors' bidding. When one comes over, even bowing to him, which makes Jo snort derisively, he just gestures to the two from 12 and declares, "Keep them well-lubricated!"  
  
The others break out in knowing laughter, but he drops his voice and tells the female tender firmly, "And make sure it's halved and measured, or I'll have the head of whoever's pouring for this." The tender promptly nods and makes to withdraw, no doubt to scuttle off and relay both the order and the warning, but he changes his mind at the last second and darts a hand out to catch her wrist. "Make that quarter-strength, no more. You get me?" And she meets his eyes and nods seriously, and he smiles, releasing her. He turns back to find several pairs of eyes on him. Brutus is smirking into his glass, and Cashmere and Gloss aren't even looking his way, but the rest are almost studying him.  
  
"Drink orders," he offers, slouching down in his seat so he can put his feet up on the table. "Can't expect a couple of kids from the ass-end of nowhere to know what the hell they're doing, can you?" He waves condescendingly at Haymitch's girl and boy—the former glaring, the latter bemused—and shouts, "You're welcome, kiddies!" just as the first of the quarter-strength drinks are carefully set in front of them by the same female tender. "Drink up!"  
  
And after that, he orders double shots for himself and manages to forget for almost a whole night._  
  
***  
  
"It's not so bad, huh?" Peeta says quietly at one point.  
  
She just shrugs and takes another sip of whatever it is in front of her. It's sweet and almost milky, and she can't taste anything off about it, and it hasn't made her feel weird, so she doesn't think it's anything too bad. She'd been leery at first, though, when Finnick Odair traipsed in and made a big production out of everything. What an overdramatic snob, she'd thought, taking in his elaborate outfit and huge gestures. Who does he think he is, she'd whispered furiously to Peeta after Odair's attention had seemingly wandered away from them.  
  
"I think he's okay," Peeta had whispered back. Katniss had just stared at him incredulously for a few seconds, but then he'd pointedly looked up the table, even jerked his head in that direction, trying to get her to see something.  
  
"What am I supposed to be seeing here?" she'd asked somewhat belligerently a minute later. "He looks stupid, even worse than Effie."  
  
"He's not," Peeta had argued. "Do you remember his Games?"  
  
She searched her memory a bit, finally coming up with, "Water, right?"  
  
Peeta nodded, and it occurred to Katniss that they both must look like weirdos, sitting here staring at Finnick Odair so intently. But, then again, from the sound of things, that was probably pretty standard for the Party Boy of 4. He must be used to people ogling him by now.  
  
"He played them all," Peeta goes on, leaning close to her and whispering while keeping his eyes locked on Odair. "I remember my dad placing his bet on him after the Tribute interviews. He said, 'That one's going to get it. You wait and see. There's something off about that boy.'"  
  
"Not exactly a ringing endorsement there," she says.  
  
"He meant the act he was putting on for the cameras," Peeta responds, sounding somewhat frustrated and turning to look at her. "Look, we know everyone here did what they had to to get out, right?" He waits until she nods exaggeratedly that she gets what he's talking about.  
  
"Yeah, okay. So?"  
  
"So," he says, drawing the word out irritatingly, "what makes him any different? He lives here all the time, Katniss. You've seen it too. Everyone goes home after the Games. Look at Haymitch. But," and Peeta goes back to staring at Finnick Odair as he makes a fool of himself, "he doesn't. He doesn't leave."  
  
She looks again now too and says, "He doesn't get to."  
  
"They get you where it hurts, I think," Peeta says. "It's whatever you want. That's what they keep from you."  
  
"You mean that's what they take from you," she corrects.  
  
Peeta just shrugs. "Same thing. It's still a game. Everyone's just playing for more than their lives this time. I don't think anything is what it seems anymore, Katniss. I really don't—especially people."  
  
She turns her head away from Odair and says very clearly to the boy beside her, "I am."  
  
And he looks at her and winces. "For now," he corrects.  
  


 

 


	2. Out of Balance

_Best pals in the whole world they are not, and she still can't stand to be around any of them for more than an hour straight. Haymitch isn't even here; Finn's already trashed; and this is all pointless anyway. Big day's tomorrow, big show of welcome to the newest doomed. It's time for a new round of slaughter, and this year there's no point even going in to the Sponsor Center. Not like they'll be doing anything there, not even playing at it like they usually do. No, this Games they're all just glorified chaperones, leading their Tributes to the killing grounds. Only reason to show up at the Center is to have a front row seat to the executions._

_They're all required to be present. There's an 'or else' implicit in the so-called invitation, but what the 'or else' actually entails is irrelevant. They'll go, and they'll watch; they'll see and know what's really going on. That's the point. The 'or else' can't be any worse than the command itself because it's already the threat._

_The Victors, they're the 'or else,' and their 'or else' is seeing others turn into them._

_"It does not look good," she'd told her two Tributes in lieu of any formal introduction. The boy looked terrified, about to wet himself, and why not, considering he's a soft 13 and soft around the middle too. The girl was better or just a better liar. She'll probably go towards the beginning, be overconfident in her strength and cunning and piss off the wrong Tributes, and the boy is guaranteed a first slot. After all, that's what she'd do, what the others are likely telling their Tributes to do. If it were Jo back in there, back for a second round and no playing around, she'd go for the soft ones, the unlucky and stupid ones, the proud ones, the ones everyone liked, leaving the tough guys, saving the real bastards for last. By then, she wouldn't care about the outcome. None of them would. Run down enough targets, cut enough throats, bash in enough brains, everything looks the same—red._

_Her kids won't make it, and the lack of supplies has little to do with it. It's looking like another Career year, if it's anything. They're being all hush-hush about it, but if the Big Plan doesn't pan out, which it likely won't, then they're all pretty much dead anyway, and who's going to care at that point what little psycho won this year when faced with a Victor mutiny and mass defection to fucking 13? It's all crazy and optimistic, and every time she helpfully points out that even if they do succeed in escaping and making a big show, a huge example of it, they won't be done because there will still be the little matter of, oh, a war with The Capitol ahead of them—everyone just tells her to shut up, that that's not the point, not on the agenda, comes later, etc._

_So, here they are drinking and not even faking making fucking merry, and tomorrow night they open up shop again. Supposedly, she's got a Date tomorrow night, although the only leverage Snow's got against her at this point are her Tributes, the ones pretty much a sure thing to go down first, so she's not sure yet if she'll give in and spare the runts another week, or if it's better to just give Snow a reminder of her position in the scheme of things and have the two kids dead in their beds and out of it before it really gets nasty. It wouldn't be painless, either way, but maybe being murdered dispassionately by guards is easier to swallow than another kid breaking your neck or stabbing you with a sharp rock right in the jugular or even gutting you and just making off with your stuff while you lie there for hours and hours just begging to die._

_Tough call. She's the bad guy no matter what, but she's always the bad guy. Not like they're her kids, after all. Who puts any stock in her compassion? If she'd been in the Arena again, she wouldn't hesitate._

_Probably._

_Looking around the room at her peers in their cups, some more than others, she's pretty sure they all feel the same—a couple exceptions maybe. Get it over with. Enough foreplay. She'd like to see how it played out, know who in the end was the real Champion. Her stake would be the Wonder Twins. It'd come down to Cash and Gloss, and then they'd just stab each other and die. Then Snow would start all over, a fresh crop for the next Games, a new slew of losers—oh, wait, Victors. They win. That's right: losers die, and Victors win.  She's always getting that mixed up. And, snorting at Finn as he stumbles and takes a header facedown into the floor, Jo lifts her glass and shouts over to Haymitch's blond boy, "So this is what victory looks like!"_

_He doesn't laugh._

_He'd be first on Jo's list if they were back in, the girl attached to his side second. Let those watching suffer as the Tributes suffer, the murderers, the murdered, all hands collectively curled together around the hilt of the sword, axe, knife—trident. She'd still leave the tough ones for last, those in disfavor like Brutus and Chaff and the Twins. The others would gun for Haymitch maybe, remembering his Games and the fact that every time someone underestimates him as just another fall-down drunk he still somehow winds up on top. He'd go down eventually though. Talasi would be next on her list, Talasi or Annie Cresta, both of whom would stand there and wait for it, thank her and forgive her as she met their eyes and swung. Some of the others might band together like the old days, but she wouldn't. Finn would try, would follow behind her or outpace her and clear the way, but what's the long term outcome of that? The two of them against each other? No, thank you. She'd push him aside and wait to hear his cries across the Arena as one of the others smashed in his beautiful face. Finnick wouldn't make it out. He'd hesitate or play the martyr or be that Tribute unfortunate enough to fall into one of the Gamemakers' traps. The people would cry for him, cry for the kids from 12, and then they'd be left with the nasty ones to root for. See how satisfying that was for them to swallow._

_Jo looks up just in time to witness The Capitol's golden boy, in all his drunken glory, get up on his hands and knees and do his best to crawl over to the nearest sofa amidst jeers and morbid laughter. Now's normally when Jo would stomp over there and bend down, drag him over to wherever Haymitch is already passed out, and force him to lie on his side so he didn't choke on his own vomit. She'd sprawl out next to him and keep the others away, and when he came to he wouldn't thank her, just slink off and try again a few hours later. Someday, she'll hear Finn finally succeeded in getting himself killed—took a header down some stairs, fell over a balcony without a force shield, was thoroughly beaten and never said anything and bled out internally, overdosed, overdosed, overdosed, stabbed himself in the neck or arm like before and managed to hit an artery this time, pissed off the wrong person or made himself too big a nuisance, died for Annie, died for his family, fucking died for Johanna for all the good it would do any goddamn person._

_Finn makes it to the sofa without her help, drags himself up onto it, and throws an arm over his eyes. He won't actually cry or sob, but that's basically what he's doing. Jo turns her head, finds that blond boy from 12 again, sees his girlfriend next to him. They're looking at each other, and she stares until the girl notices, until she looks back, until the boy notices and looks back. They look at her, and she drinks, and Finn tearlessly weeps, and they are none of them actually real._

_Yeah, she'd take the boy out first, but then the girl would take her out, and then she'd fucking win or lose, depending on how one looks at it, and it would be over._

***

The waiting is what's hardest. And it's not even that he'd really be any good at handling whatever bad is coming. He just can't stand the constant anxiety and fear as it ratchets up every day, higher and higher, tighter, constricting, binding—suffocating the life out of him. The anticipation—it's worse in some ways than standing on that pedestal, watching the seconds tick down, knowing, knowing, knowing they're gonna die; they're gonna die; they are going to die when it hits zero.

He puts on a brave face nonetheless. He's not stupid, and whatever else he is—weak, useless, naïve, not good enough, not the right one—he's no coward. Now's the time for strength, and he's got that. He can do stable, and he can do smart. He's good at planning, improvising, maybe not the best, but. . .

And his—quirks are quieter than others'. Dreams are pretty horrible, but his are thankfully muted. He'll sit up with a gasp, but he doesn't scream or thrash around. Pretty sure someone would have mentioned it if he were obvious like that. The people around here are not subtle, and privacy is something he's heard about but never really experienced. Back in 12, everything is right there for everyone to see. Every single thing he did, every word he said, probably most of the thoughts in his head, all were common knowledge, dismissed like—well, like he was. He always kind of thought of himself as wallpaper, not the fancy kind or the hideous kind that's peeling, just the plain stuff that's in the background, day in and day out, unremarkable, all but invisible.

Ok, so he's maybe bitter about being overlooked and underestimated his whole life, of always, always being second best. That's the way it is, and he's not fucking perfect. He has feelings. He's not just some machine.

And that's maybe supposed to be one of the better parts about being in The Capitol—the fact that he's not back there in 12. And he's someone here. People look at him and want to talk to him now, and that never happened in 12, never. It comes with a price of course because everything does. Nothing's free, not even kindness.

He's quiet in some things, silent, and he's still overlooked, but that's good in a way. It's good because he likes the privacy now, the space between him and everyone else. He's even sort of mysterious apparently. Someone said that to him, some woman with scary makeup and hair. He likes the idea of it, being puzzling and enigmatic. Better than being boring old wallpaper.

But what he pays isn't worth it. It's too much, the pressure, the horror. It's almost separate, like an actual person. He sometimes finds himself talking to it in his head, wheedling, trying to bargain for more when he knows it's a waste of time. "Please," he'll whisper, and he'll sometimes dare to set his hand on her shoulder, just rest it there before shaking her awake, "please, what more is there? Haven't we given enough? What else? Please. . . " And his eyes will start stinging, but he stops before he cries, shakes Katniss out of her nightmares and keeps his privacy. He's strong, not some weak fool who cries because he's so scared, so so so scared of what's happening. He doesn't speak of it to her either, only to the gloom, the fear, the terror.

The colors are brighter here and the shadows darker, the people too. The words are different, as are the people saying them. These people don't know him, none of them really. They look, and they see what they want to see. He is Peeta Mellark, Victor from 12. He is strong and clever, and he's important.

It's bad that he enjoys that but maybe smarter than him wishing, pleading, begging to go back to how things were because at least he knows those things, and that's cowardly. That's what weak people do, cling to things, even stupid, hurtful things just because they're familiar. But how is what he has now any better than what's back in 12? There, it's always picking and mocking and hitting, and no one sees anything, but they all fucking know, don't they? Here, though—here, it's just as lonely, and he's just as– just as angry and afraid, only differently because he's got something to lose now.

Someone.

And he's a bad person because he looks forward to nights when Katniss screams and moans, when she twists and turns under the covers—because he's here to see it, and he wakes her up, wraps his hand around her shoulder and pulls her out to safety. She's the difference, in the end, between 12 and The Capitol, and he's not stupid enough not to know she's the best part of all this. The fake privacy, the horrid attention, it's all worthless meaningless garbage. Katniss though is real. And she's so much trouble and so incredibly vulnerable. And she has no idea. She's clueless, calls Peeta an idiot, but she's the one oblivious.

If he says the wrong thing or doesn't say the right one or looks when he shouldn't or isn't there at the precise moment he needs to be, she could be gone, taken, killed, murdered, just like in the Arena, and it would be his fault for failing her, for letting down everyone else who isn't in The Capitol and can't fight this battle. Katniss is more than another Victor, more than this person he feels so much for. She's– she's hope and change, and it's his job now to make sure she's ok. That's on him more than anyone else because that's what comes with owning up to his feelings for her last year in front of everyone in Panem. He volunteered for this.

Back in 12, he looked after himself because no one else was going to, maybe his dad the best he could, but there it's different. Here, people he doesn't even know and will likely never meet are counting on him, praying for him to change something—everything. He can't do that himself, but he can sure as hell help and protect the best he's able the person who will. And maybe that's the real price for coming out of the Arena alive. Everyone else sees Katniss as his, his girl, his love, but she isn't really, or if she is then he's not really hers. Or maybe he is, and she just doesn't know it, and maybe that's the price of loving her right there—not being loved by her in return.

The truth is if it keeps her alive, then he'll gladly pay it a thousand times over, and whether that's strength or weakness doesn't much matter, does it? It's simply the truth; it's just the way things are.

***

_Masks, rotting fruit or steel underneath, slick and hot and foul at the core—people are all the same when it comes right down to it. Empty or full, they're all meat waiting to be snacked on by the carnivores here in The Capitol, and Victors, Tributes, they're the veal, the tastiest morsels. Some of 'em, anyway, like Haymitch's foundlings and the Crazy Coalition of Finn and his lady love, just make it too easy. Others, like her and Haymitch himself and good ol' fucking Brutus and Chaff over there, they're the gristle, the parts that get stuck in people's throats, lodged in their teeth. They're what Snow reaches into that bloody maw of his and drags out with his neat little fingers, what he shoves to the rim of his plate with a screech of hard cutlery, what ruins his fucking appetite. Jo takes what pleasure she can from that thought. Let him grow his fucking roses. Next time he pricks himself, he can name the offending thorn after her. That would just about make her fucking day._

***

He's around this year's Tributes more than Katniss and Haymitch are, probably on par with Effie or the stylists in terms of every day interaction. It's not really that surprising. Going into this year's Games, he'd expected this sort of thing from Katniss, this distancing, this withdrawal. It's what she did last year, what she did during the Victory Tour, what she does with everyone. And people always fight the most with those who remind them of themselves—like to like. For all that she doesn't seem to recognize it, Katniss is a lot like Haymitch, and Haymitch blinds and distances himself from the Games as much and as often as he can. That first day on the train, a year ago now, that was a pretty good summary of who Haymitch is as a person.

Katniss is so like him it's scary. What's going to happen to her, what already is, that's what's really terrifying. It's not that they care too much; it's how they're unable to show that care that's the problem. Katniss is good, but it's like she's afraid to be kind.

It doesn't make sense. It's just stupid. Life is—so short. Why make things harder and tougher? Why not be nice?

He's actually kind of glad it was Lara this year Reaped as the girl Tribute from 12. Someone else, a female version of their boy Tribute, would've meant at least another year of beating around the bush. It's hard to ignore something when it's right there. Lara's right there, right in front of everyone in The Capitol. People learned a lot about 12 last year because of Katniss. They remembered Haymitch. They saw what it really meant to live in the Districts: the Reaping, when Katniss stumbled out of line, screeching at Prim, when she shouted that she volunteered—the recaps love replaying that. People here and all around Panem see that moment a lot. They see what the Games really are, and maybe this year it will truly sink home. That's what he's trying to do, just make it so they understand, so they really get what this freak show is doing to people. If people understand, then they'll either help and fight or sneer and fight against, and at least then they'll know where everyone stands. It's the ignoring, the apathy that prevents anything from changing.

Haymitch and Katniss don't get that. Maybe they don't know how or can't decide what way is best to help change things, but the waiting is killing them. It's killing everyone in the Districts, but it's really killing what's inside them, what makes Haymitch a good man, what gives Katniss that fire inside her, what once probably set all the other Victors apart. Apathy is awful. Peeta knows that now, and it's one thing to play the game in order to win. It's another to just play the game.

***

_First time she kissed someone on the mouth, it was her grandmother, and it wasn't like that. Just how it was where she grew up. People showed how they felt in ways that mattered. Words weren't it; it was action. It used to be, for her, that all it would take to make her smile was someone else smiling at her first. She likes thinking about that, likes remembering and twisting the knife deeper in her own breast. Someday, she'll make it all the way through her childhood, through the whole family, and then she'll be as crazy as Crazy Annie, but maybe she'll find something there too in those memories. Maybe that's what being at peace means—being fucking nuts._

_Little Jo had been such a nice girl, always smiling and making treats with her grandma and helping the little kids. Little Jo was practical and smart, but she'd only ever done good for good. Jo, on the other hand, doesn't know what the fuck good is, and she sure as hell isn't giving it for free to someone else. She's smarter than that now._

_Besides, Little Jo couldn't hack it out in the real world. Turns out, that kid was just surface-deep, lasted about five seconds after the countdown ended in the arena. Still, Jo kind of misses the kisses and hugs and baking and laughter, the laughter most of all. It's not like it is today, with teeth and rattling and stink hovering over everything. Fire burned what was left. The fire scattered Little Jo's ashes as it cremated Grandma and Dad and Mom and Uncle Joseph and those little twins who always whined too much but sure knew how to make a girl feel like a god. Uncle Joseph was the worst, didn't die like the rest di– like she pretended the rest did, maybe in their sleep from the smoke, of asphyxiation, maybe clawing at their necks and trying to keep the little ones down in bed, covering their mouths so they wouldn't breathe in and maybe accidentally killing them on purpose there towards the end. Sick, terrible, but better than Uncle Joe._

_Uncle Joseph, Uncle Joe, he was everybody's favorite. It was that way before he got hit in the head by the Peacekeepers, and it was that way afterwards too. Dad had two brothers, but Uncle Joe was his favorite, named his oldest kid after him, took him in when he got hurt. And Uncle Joe was funny. All the kids around loved him, looked after him and out for him just as much as he did for them. Strong, silly, good down to the core, that was Uncle Joe, and, when they started setting fire to the area, Uncle Joe was the first to come out and the last, the only. Peacekeepers finished what they'd started 20 years ago, and it was Uncle Joe who served as the example. No bodies in the streets, just one, and even then it wasn't whole._

_Little Jo and Big Joe, that's what Dad and Grandma had called them, smiling and laughing and pecks on the lips and hugs so tight she couldn't breathe, little swirls of icing on tiny cakes and pine cones in her bed when the twins started running and bringing things back inside with them, and all of it just as sharp now as the strongest knife. She wields this blade though. That's the difference. They crafted it for her, in the fire, tempered it and heated it till it was perfect. Now it's hers, made especially for her, made only for her, a gift from them, they, The Capitol, the Gamemakers and Peacekeepers and Rulers of Panem, the President, Snow, his hand in every pot, his voice in every head, his eyes everywhere, everywhere, everywhere but in her head. He used that life she'd had against her once and once only._

_He kissed her once too, a peck on the cheek when she'd won. "A job well done," he'd told her, amused, laughing in that head of his, laughing at those who'd died, those kids she'd strangled and stabbed and pushed off the cliff top and hacked up. Kisses and hugs she'd aplenty since then, but that one from Snow is set apart. It means more._

_Let him laugh when her knife is in his throat, the knife he made her, gave her, pointed for her. Maybe then she'll return that kiss of his, but she'll give it real feeling, none of that half-assed cheek stuff. It'll be lips to lips, and she'll give it to his corpse or maybe a nice sendoff for him, steal that last breath, take it in. Uncle Joe would laugh at that—because Uncle Joe had laughed at almost everything and never hurt a fuckin' soul._

***

It's supposed to be a bigger deal. He's been building it up in his head as some kind of bridge he has to cross, they have to cross, the stuff from stories, with fire and monsters below and maybe something on the other side they have to get to. It will be better once it's done; that's what he told himself.

It's not. It's nothing while it's happening, something that should be important, taking his clothes off while the woman laughs, some kind of dark wine in her glass, staining her lips, her teeth: it looks like blood. Standing as the man comes up and puts his hands on Peeta's shoulders, slides them down his arms, his stomach, laughing, laughing at the leg they put there instead of his real one, like it's funny, the two of them laughing in delight. Hands on his ass, his thighs, the woman saying with a smile, "Your turn, dear one," to Katniss, savoring the shock and unease like that fucking wine in her mouth.

Katniss can't, starts and stops half a dozen times, a baker's dozen, the whole room dark with Effie's goddamn mahogany, like chocolate, cakes, and birthdays in 12, bread tossed out to her, huddled like she can disappear, her dress around her waist, better with him now than Cray back there: that's what he tells himself as he moves out from under the man, walks slowly across the thick carpet.

"Katniss," he whispers, hand on her arm.

She doesn't look up, doesn't meet his eyes, but she almost—almost relaxes. Standing there, touching her, she slides the dress off the rest of the way, red and black pooling at her feet, blood and gore. Cinna works his magic. And he wants to not look, to look away, pretend it isn't happening and get on with it, but she's here and beautiful and hurt, and Peeta tries so hard.

"My, you two really are in love, aren't you?" the woman says, the man laughing.

And Peeta smiles at them, turns and walks over to the woman, boldly takes the glass from her hand and places his mouth where hers had been. He drinks it, drinks down all that Capitol patron wine and then throws the glass at the wall in front of him. They laugh, the man, the woman, and Peeta.

"Maybe it's you I'm in love with," Peeta says to her, staring at her eyes, too-blue and twinkling. "Maybe it's your husband."

And she grins that bloody grin that they all have here, like even their insides are too bored to stay in one place, like every part of them is slowly trying to escape.

"Oh, he's not my husband," she says wickedly.

"Your lover," Peeta drawls, only to be lightly shoved, playfully, the man coming up again and taking him by the shoulder once more.

"Try again, lover boy," he says before he swoops in and kisses Peeta, pulling him close.

It's ok. It's not nice or terrible or pleasant. He doesn't enjoy it, but it's not fire and monsters. It's just this random guy shoving his tongue inside his mouth and grabbing at Peeta's ass again.

And the truth is, he's surprised it's worked this long, a couple minutes, surprised and shocked she'd played along this well, because when Katniss does open her mouth, it's to say, "Son."

The woman laughs, and the man kisses Peeta again, and eventually there's another hand on him, his back, his forearm, his hand when it later becomes more than not enjoying it, when it hurts and the two of them still don't stop laughing and grinning and drinking their wine. But Peeta drinks a lot too, and so it's not great, not fun, not loving like he'd always thought it was supposed to be, but it's ok. It's fine. (Because at least Katniss is there: with her neck bare as the woman lifts her hair and kisses her way down, with her breasts lifting as she breathes, breathes, hyperventilating when Peeta squeezes her hand to keep from crying, with her thighs and ass and that place between her legs he doesn't touch or look at because she won't meet his eyes, and he returns the favor.)

They put on their clothes, and Peeta smiles and thanks the man and woman, and then he takes Katniss by the hand and walks out the door.

See, it wasn't awful, and if she doesn't ever really make eye contact, and if he doesn't drink wine, then that's still not fire and monsters or kids murdering other kids right in front of him, trying to murder him, hunt Katniss like an animal, and all the time laughing with their bloody mouths. (And he realizes too late, weeks, months, years later, that it wasn't a river of fire beneath that stupid bridge of his, and the monsters weren't out to get him and Katniss, that there was never anything on the other side or even an other side to begin with, that it wasn't a bridge across or even a staircase down, that it wasn't the first or last or middle or some great epiphany. It was mundane, tame for the most part, unremarkable, boring: not even a hurdle, just a chore, a drop in the bucket. Peeta will look back at that night later, and he'll wish he were back there, when it was him and Katniss and two people whose names he didn't even know, when it wasn't a big deal, when it wasn't great but wasn't awful, when he took her hand and they walked out.)

***

_She went on every scheduled Date for a little more than half a year, about eight months. Most, she was alone on, just her and whoever had paid the price, but some had included others. There was Gloss a few times but only once with Cashmere. One citizen had booked her and Talasi twice a week for three months._

_And there was Finnick: a great contrast; Finnick: a good example; Finnick: wonderful chemistry._

_The Dates stopped when she refused one, just one, and instead wandered around The Capitol without express permission from Snow. Everything stopped then. It'd been a big night ahead of her, and she'd heard the rumors, seen the man in question in action with other people, and knew with absolute certainty that she would not go with him, no matter how much he paid._

_So she'd run away, run to Finn, but she imagines fleeing back home, spending the last few hours with her family fighting, shouting, half-heartedly defending herself because she certainly didn't like who she was becoming but wouldn't have been able to just outright admit that. Her mother would have looked heartbroken and disgusted at the sneer stamped on Jo's face, the clothes she wore and didn't wear, her inevitably snapping at the twins or carelessly brushing them aside. Her father would have gaped at Jo's hair, the body paint he'd think was permanent, the fact that she was home in the middle of the afternoon with no advance notice and no luggage and her hands locked into fists at her sides. She pictured their reactions when the shooting happened out in the street, when the Peacemakers came and set the fire, when everything crashed down around them. Jo's family wouldn't have looked at her accusingly, but she wishes they could have, wishes someone would. If she'd been there, she'd remember the sound of coughing all around her, hacking, full-body coughs as the smoke seeped into everyone's lungs. She wouldn't have been able to see but would still try to move, help the others, rush for the twins first because they were youngest. She would have tried—and failed and died. Or there would have been scars, horrible, disfiguring scars. She'd just given in to the stylists' opinion a week before and had her hair lacquered, and there would have been burn scars from the fire itself and burn scars from her hair literally melting across her scalp, down her neck, forehead and face, over her ears, eyelids, nose, a crown of wax—and underneath, a monster, a coward, someone incapable of withstanding anything and everything thrown at her for the sake of her family, someone who'd run and hide._

_Instead, Jo went to Finnick's luxury apartment, and he'd let her in, and they got drunk, and he'd looked at her in shock because he'd known. As soon as she admitted what she'd done, even then, days before they told her, before she received the impersonal notification saying a terrible tragedy had befallen her home community, Finn had known. Maybe that's why; maybe that explains it. Jo's burnt to ashes underneath but not on top, and Finnick's the reverse, but his people are alive, and hers are dead, and she hates him for it, envies him for it, respects him for it—because he doesn't run away, didn't, wouldn't, won't, and Jo never stops, never will. They're both liars, but he's still somehow honest about it. She probably loves him, is probably even in love with him, but so what? She can't know for sure. Maybe it's there, but the door to it is locked and likely to stay that way. Good, good riddance to feelings. Rage works. Rage is productive. Love would be overwhelmed by guilt, so it just stops right there._

_When her ribs start showing, when her cheekbones could cut through flesh, they call her frail. When she shaves off her hair to the root, they call her rough. When she comes and goes as she pleases, they call her wild. When she shows up, they call her weak. And she fights and obeys, is there and not there—but not really here at all, and not back home, and not even in The Capitol. There's the Arena, the Games, the hunt and hide, and she never leaves, never makes it out._

_Not really, because here she is still playing._

***

Their Tributes don't go first or last, but they both go together, him defending her, his death a minute before hers, both near the water, the Career pack strutting away down the beach, twirling their makeshift weapons and reenacting the whole scene as they laugh and shove each other. See if they're still so damn amused when they're stuck in one of the traps, drowning in blood or having their eyes gouged out by mutts or their skin and insides boiling with poisonous gas. Peeta slams his fist into the table, and hardly anyone even looks over. Katniss doesn't, sits next to him like a statue, something cold and unfeeling.

She knew the whole time, and he'd thought he did too.

"You win some," Haymitch calls out from where he's sprawled on one of the sofas, waving his bottle first at Peeta and then towards the screens, "and you lose some. Cheers, you lucky bastards!"

Peeta's staring, his fists clenched, his face doing something awful, but all he wants is to make someone hurt like he hurts because Haymitch's words just keep going around and around in his head like a chant. Pointless, useless, all of them sitting here, lying around, fucking complete strangers, and it means absolutely nothing, not a damn thing.

What are they doing?

"Shut up, Haymitch," Katniss says tiredly, like she can't even muster up the emotion necessary to fight with him, and she loves fighting with Haymitch.

Then Haymitch himself mutters, "Yeah, shut up, dumbass," which makes someone else in the room snort, and soon a few more Victors are half-heartedly chuckling, shaking their heads and blank-faced as they keep their eyes on the screens.

"This is absurd," Peeta says, not even that loudly, but more than one head turns to look at him. The older ones from 3, 11 , the girl from 5, they stare with something close to emotion, the old woman from 4 who's sitting next to Finnick Odair shaking her head at Peeta and motioning with her hands. "Why do we do this?" he then asks, still so angry, not hollow or empty like these people, like Katniss and Haymitch and the Victors who'd laughed, who'd laughed as two little kids died right in front of them and they could do nothing to stop it. Peeta's thrumming, shaking with anger and—grief.

"Shut up, dumbass," the girl from 7 repeats loudly, mimicking Haymitch's slurring but saying it differently, seriously, not joking.

"Look at us," he says, starts to say, but then Katniss reaches over, grabs his hand and squeezes.

"Peeta."

(It's like that every time. More heads will turn to look their way, and Katniss will sit there unmoving, unmoved, while Peeta seethes until the last, until it's over and the power goes out, and someone screams and someone grabs his hand.

It's not Katniss. It won't ever be Katniss again.)

***

_They'll go after them, they say. They'll stage a rescue and bring them home, and everything will go according to plan, and no one will be hurt, and no one will be killed, and when they get there—they'll still be in one piece, no harm done._

_She picks up a cup and throws it as hard as she can at the wall behind them, and some scream and shout, but most just glare at her for calling them on their lies._

_"We'll all die, or most of us will," she bites out, "and there's no guarantee they're even still there."_

_"Peeta is not dead!" Katniss immediately snaps, and Haymitch drops his face into his hands and sighs._

_What a bunch of idiots._

_"I never said he was," Jo responds. She waits a moment, but the kid doesn't get it. "They don't have to kill him to get him out of the way, you moron! Just play around with his head a little, and he's a new man."_

_The chin goes up, and that's it. No more listening from that one. Katniss stands up from her seat and about-faces, stalking right out of the room, while Jo turns back and stares at Haymitch, who just barely glances at her before looking away again._

_"It's suicide," Jo reminds him, just him. Forget the others._

_Haymitch shakes his head. "We can't leave them there," he says after a moment. Then he does look up and meet her stare, and it hits her that he's dry as a desert now, sober and alert and involved in the inner workings of this place, one of the head honchos of this—uprising. He's important, and he's going to risk throwing it all away, dooming more than just himself but everyone in Panem, all for the sake of two fools who ran the wrong way._

_She doesn't know what to say to that, can't find any words right away.  No one else jumps in, and after a minute or two they just start getting up and leaving the room, and that seems to be the end of the meeting._

_Everyone ran when the Center was stormed, fleeing like vermin and making for the nearest exit, the closest route to the ship supposedly waiting to take them all away to safety._

_Some exits were clear, and some weren't. Some streets were already blocked off. Some of them were likely too recognizable to escape unnoticed into the crowds outside._

_She ran and made it, and so did Haymitch, and so did Katniss, but others. . ._

_Fools just ran the wrong way. It probably wasn't even deliberate. They probably weren't going back because instinct takes over, habit kicks in, and it's self-preservation first, others' wellbeing second._

_(She likes that explanation best, much better than the truth: Finnick and Peeta ran the other way as a distraction, as bait, as a glorious charge into what at least Finn probably thought would be immediate death because he's a romantic suicidal idiot. The best of them as good as dead, no matter what Katniss chooses to believe._

_But how is that any different than the Games? It's a miracle either fool survived this long.)_

***

So this is what's really going on, and he doesn't know if he's surprised. How's he supposed to feel anything inside when he hurts so bad? Breathing and shutting his eyes, he doesn't try to look deeper, leaves it alone safe underneath everything that's going on.

And no one asks him anything or even talks to him, and when they'd dragged him in front of the tub of water—he'd thought they would throw him in because he stank, like a bath. Like a bathtub. The pain is better than the water, and they know it, so they try to drown him more than they stick things in his nails or once his ear or hit him in the face and stomach.

And then he just starts talking because they're not, and he's got to say something or he won't be able to think, and maybe he was supposed to be trying to escape this whole time. Maybe it's up to him, and no one's– no one's going to come. . .

They're waiting for him, and he's just sitting here.

"It's all about the flour," he starts out and just doesn't stop.

And no one says a thing to him, but he hears sometimes. He screams, and someone else screams farther away. How many are there? Are they up high or below? Is this The Capitol or a District? District 27, the Torture District. District 33, the Hot Needle District. The Capitol, The Capitol of Pain, The Capitol of Drowning, of Silence, of Abandonment.

Or maybe they'll come for him. Or maybe that's them in the next room, screaming when he doesn't, hearing him when he does. Katniss would be better at the water.

And then they pull his head out, and he sputters wetly, says, "A– a lot of blue—recently, I've noticed. Used to—be red, but now it's blue—flowers and blue writing. I think– think I liked—the red better. More honest. You know? Kids—here, kids, eat up: blood and fire—and happy day, you're going to—die horr– horribly. How's that death flower? Taste, little Sasha? More– more– another piece of bleeding—bird, Ryan? This 's– will be the only good thing 'n your life. Eat it. Eat. Enjoy it, you poor—idiots."

He's let go, drops facedown to the floor, and he tries to curl up, but he's just too– too–

"And this one?" he then hears someone ask, and he opens his eyes in shock. He's so shocked he can't breathe.

Or that's just the result of the water.

"Seems about there," he hears someone else answer, and he's got to be quiet now or they'll hear him and leave.

"Good. Well, let's see what progress has been made. Bring him along."

He's pulled back up and stumbles because his feet don't stay put, so they just drag him and drag him, and he lets them. He just goes with them.

He goes.

He went.

And he sat at a table with his hands neatly folded on top.

And he took the paper and read it through once before he spoke.

And he studied the unfamiliar faces around him.

And he slept and never remembered when he woke up.

(He's screaming, drowning, talking, crying, shouting, blinking, coughing, dying, and he's not– he's not–

He's not.)

And he gestured for them to lead the way, and then there was a scream from down the hall. He stopped and turned his head towards the sound, asked, "What was that?" (even when he knew, knew what it was, who it was.

They were both idiots, stupid stupid stupid, and he wouldn't change it, won't run back, won't– won't– cos "Here we go, Peeta," he whispers, excitedly. "This is it."

Deep breath. "Now?" Peeta asks.

"Now," Finnick answers.)

And he watched the President smile and put an arm around his shoulders.

And he nodded when the President said, "That's just the wind howling through the gaps up here. Sounds quite ghastly, doesn't it?"

***

_Finnick's a good kid pretending to be bad. He's self-absorbed and petty, but he has to really work at being cruel and clever. The deviousness though, oddly enough, seems to come naturally. Everyone's fallen for at least one of his lies at some point or another, but the biggest, most successful story is still the one about him being stupid. It's the face and the body, and it's the oldest trick in the world, and yet people buy it without question._

_Finn's not dumb—uneducated, yes, but definitely still sharp. Too young, is all, when he went ahead and volunteered, but while a dumb kid also would've volunteered, a dumb kid wouldn't've won. Two kinds of Tributes win, smart ones and lucky ones, and Finn ain't lucky. He's good, and he's good-looking, and Jo's always kind of hated him even while loving him because he makes it look easy._

_He doesn't try hard enough, folds in the right places, and that's smart too but only in the short-term. He's not hard or strong, thinks he is but isn't really. Jo doesn't bend to their will anymore, and she'd been a poor bedmate even when she had been bending over, and she's alone, but she's herself—not a great person, not nice, not good, but at least she's real. The others like Finn and the Wonder Twins, they give themselves away, and now all that's left are shells and maybe a few pieces here and there. It's sad and pathetic. Cashmere and Gloss though, they weren't good, never had been, so it's just vaguely disgusting seeing what's become of them year after year after year. But, Finn. . ._

_It wouldn't hurt so much if she hadn't looked up to him, if he hadn't lied to her too without hesitation. Didn't know how to stop, that one. That's what she's finally figured out. Finn's too smart for his own good. Built himself a trap he can't ever escape, and now everyone around him is stuck watching him self-destruct with no way to help. He's dangerous now, stuck in a corner. He lashes out, lashes in more often, takes stupid jobs with bad people and goes back to his District to make nice with his family, all because he's smart and good, and if he didn't take those jobs, then someone else would, and if he didn't go back to 4, then they might suspect something, and that just wouldn't do for Finnick. It's not real if it doesn't hurt: that's the lesson he's learned._

_Two types of Victors, and if Finn's the smart one, then she's the lucky one—and doesn't that just about say it all._

***

(It doesn't work, not thinking about things, pretending none of it ever happened. It didn't work when he was a kid, and he doesn't even try it now, but he knows. There's saving something for later, and then there's just eating it all now, and people do either one or the other but never both—nobody but him. He's good at remembering though, especially when it comes to the way things look. His hands are good too. He gets stuff, and he can hold onto it and recreate it later, so he has his cake like that old saying, and he eats it all up, all of it, every single crumb, and then—well, and then he bakes another cake, and damned if the second one isn't better than the first. Because he remembers, see. He never forgets. He holds on to it and makes it better, makes more of it.

What's there is there to stay, and there's no changing that, no hiding from it. People don't get that a lot of times, but he does. The good and the terrible are more than just memories, moments that were and then slipped away like smoke. Everything rests on something else, a foundation, a jumping-off point. This is life. They are who they are because of what they've done, what they've seen and said and thought throughout their lives.

He is this person now because of what's happened. Take that away, and who is he?

Take that away.

–and who is he?)

And he looked up, and there they were.

And how he hated them. And how she'd suffer.

And if he heard something quiet in the back of his head scream, he knew it was just the wind—howling through the gaps.


End file.
